Bad Santa 2

I haven’t read any reviews for Bad Santa 2 but my gut instinct is that people hate it. I loved it. But maybe I should disclose that I loved Cop Out. I read nothing about it, saw it at the cinema, came home to read reviews and was shocked that Smith didn’t write the screenplay, and that people hated it so much. I firmly believe that comedy is kind of the only genre where critics’ opinions do not matter. Overwhelmingly critics hate a comedy film but the people love it. I also think that sequel-itis taints peoples’ opinions and its hard to not see them as soulless cash-grabs.

I’ve grown tired of tedious rom-coms and Seth Rogan fat-geek-gets-hot-chick stoner films, so any comedy film that isn’t that has potential in my book. I enjoyed the first film and went into this wanting to laugh and be entertained after a long day of listening to a four-year-old talk from 8am to 8pm.

Billy-Bob Thornton returns as drunken loser Willie Soke. He hooks up with his little sidekick Marcus and is roped into ripping off a charity on Christmas Eve. We met Willie’s mother Sunny (Kathy Bates), who is the highlight of the film as she plays a crude bull-dykey hard ass who volunteers at the charity as Mrs Claus. Fear not, Thurman Merman is in it and is as adorable but creepy as ever. I don’t think the absence of Lauren Graham really damaged the film at all, I suppose some may have been holding out for her to be in it, but in my opinion it would have only brought a corny romantic element to the film.

Sure, it’s just another escapade similar to the first film, but it’s not a film that you are coming to for story and character development. This could have been Bad Santa in Space and people (myself included) would have watched it. Thornton’s character is still fun, Thurman is still entertaining and the jokes are gross and offensive. It was never going to be as break-out as the first film but as a sequel it could have done a hell of a lot worse. I wanted to switch off my brain and re-enact this scene from Idiocracy. It made me laugh, it was offensive, crude, politically incorrect and just as grotesque as the first. If you have high-standards go watch a Fellini film instead.